The Wicker Man

The Wicker Man is a musical, and most people who recommend it forget to mention that.

There are folk songs throughout — a landlord's bawdy round, a naked Britt Ekland singing through a wall, a maypole rhyme sung by boys, a procession hymn — performed diegetically by the islanders and arranged by Paul Giovanni from genuine traditional material. The effect is that the community is not sinister. It is cheerful, bawdy, musical and extremely well adjusted, and the only person in the film who is frightened, repressed and humourless is the policeman the audience is meant to identify with.

That inversion is the whole trick. Edward Woodward plays Howie as a prig: a devout Free Church Presbyterian who is disgusted by the sex, offended by the religion, and certain throughout that he is dealing with criminals rather than believers. Christopher Lee's Lord Summerisle is patient, amused and entirely sincere, and he gives the better arguments.

It is an argument between two religions and the film takes a side

Howie's Christianity is presented as joyless and brittle; the island's paganism as productive, communal and sexually healthy — right up until the point where it requires a man to be burned alive. The film does not resolve this in Howie's favour, and it does not let the islanders off either. What it establishes is that a functioning society can arrive at an atrocity by consensus and remain functional afterwards, which is the thesis every folk horror since has borrowed.

The production was a mess and it shows

Shot in autumn for a May setting, so the crew wired blossom onto bare trees. Lee worked for nothing. The studio cut it to eighty-seven minutes and the negative trim was, by legend, buried under a motorway. The result is that there is no definitive version — the Director's Cut restores the mainland prologue and Howie's established virginity, which matters because his virginity is one of the four qualifications for the sacrifice.

Watch the Director's Cut or the 2013 Final Cut. The theatrical version removes the setup that makes the ending a trap rather than a surprise.

For the same consensus-atrocity in daylight, Midsommar is the direct descendant; for the same island isolation, The Lighthouse.

The short answer: there is no missing girl. Rowan Morrison was never in danger — the entire investigation was staged to bring Howie to the island and keep him there. He is the sacrifice: a king's representative, a virgin, a fool who came of his own free will. The islanders seize him during the May Day procession, sew him into a huge wicker effigy with livestock, and burn it while singing. The film ends on the burning man and the sun.

Why was Howie the sacrifice?

Because he met the requirements, and the islanders tell him so plainly. Summerisle lists them: he came of his own free will, he has the power of a king as the law's representative, he is a virgin, and he is a fool. Every step of the investigation — the false report, the obstruction, the fake grave, the discovery of Rowan alive — was designed to produce exactly those four conditions in one man.

Was Rowan Morrison ever in danger?

No. She is alive and unharmed throughout and takes part in the deception, running from Howie in the cave sequence so that he will believe he is rescuing her. The reveal that she is one of them, holding Summerisle's hand, is the moment Howie understands he has not been investigating anything.

Does Howie's faith save him?

No, and the film is pointed about it. He dies reciting the twenty-third psalm while the islanders sing a harvest song, and the two pieces of music compete on the soundtrack. The film grants him dignity and denies him deliverance. Summerisle's closing argument — that if the crops fail again, the islanders will sacrifice him next year — is the only hint that the system might eventually collapse.

Which cut of The Wicker Man should I watch?

The Director's Cut or the 2013 Final Cut, not the eighty-seven-minute theatrical version. The longer cuts include the mainland prologue establishing Howie's fiancée and his abstinence, which is what makes the virginity requirement a trap laid in advance rather than a convenient coincidence.

Scored against the published rubric, here is what the numbers mean.

Tone 052 is the surprise and it is correct. 100 works score lower, making this one of the least bleak films in the index. It is funny, bawdy, full of songs, and the islanders are having a lovely time. The bleakness is entirely in the last six minutes and belongs to one man.

The threat at 088 is near the ceiling — only 8 works score higher. Nothing supernatural occurs. No god appears, no magic works, no crop is shown to recover. It is a community that has agreed on something.

Viscera 018 is very low — 11 works score lower. Nobody bleeds. The violence is one man inside a structure that is set alight, shown from outside.

Era bias 006 is near the floor — only 6 works score lower. 1973 British film stock, location sound, wired-on blossom.

Pace 020 is slow — 22 works are slower. It is a procedural for eighty minutes and a horror film for six.

Reality anchor 042 keeps it grounded. An island, a licensing law, a school register, a harvest.

On jump scares: none at all. The film never raises its voice before the procession.